Six Pictures Of Danny Renaud Skating Again, And One Other, Cribbed From Various Instagram Entries

“The recovery process was hell. I was confined to wheel chairs and walkers. I had a halo around my left leg for about 6 months and one on my right for two years. I had to sleep on my back, coffin style, the whole time. Talk about taking tossing and turning at night for granted. I had to learn how to walk all over again. I couldn’t start my recovery until the halo’s were off. The day I got my second halo off, I walked around a lake that was about four miles. It wasn’t until last August (2011) that I got my last surgery where I had my Achilles heel lengthened and scar tissue removed for more range of motion in my right ankle.”

“I’ve been skating a lot, trying to get this footage for Mike Atwood’s upcoming video, Incognito, which should be good. All the Florida homies and then some. So far I’ve got a small part, but you know how it goes. It’s a nightmare trying to film, but I’m working on it. I’m also taking some business classes in New York because eventually I would like to start up my own small company.”

Thanks to those users from whom these photos were yanked. For rewatching purposes.

500 Leagues Beneath The Sea

Four years is an eternity in the fast-moving world of blog web updating, where an unvarnished amateur can win youtube renown, sign to a hot-shoe contract, succumb to a tattoo addiction and quit his board sponsor via a rap song all in the span of a week. In a case where the truth is even sadder than fiction, this is the 500th posting on this internet space, during which time Ali Boulala did a bid, Alien Workshop changed hands twice, Chad Fernandez’ “gargoyle” video was repeatedly yanked from youtube, Active sought protection from its creditors, Forrest Edwards arrived and Jereme Rogers left and then came back again. Still waiting for Antwuan Dixon to return. Check back for number 1000, tentatively scheduled for 2020, probably bitching about the Olympics. In the interim here’s Ethan Fowler’s “Visual Sound” part just because. And thanks for reading all this monkey business

Funnel Cloud

Got the warm fuzzys seeing Raymond Molinar pop up in the Trapasso-facepaint Skateboard Mag the other day, partly because I’ve been worried about him fading out ever since his departure off Habitat. (Did anybody ever get the story with that, btw.) There’s a little bit of Henry Sanchez-style spazz crustiness to Raymond Molinar’s take on technical ledge tricks and he had a reputation for being kind of a dick, deserved or not, there’s a certain amount of that sort of thing that’s necessary I think, the more you gotta color inside the lines to appease the energy drink-pourers of the world. My initial recollections of Raymond Molinar date back to some tricks in a TWS vid montage, possibly “Free Your Mind,” which would’ve been an all-time classic with another part and 1/3 as many skits — he did lines in those Vans with the giant V on the side, reminiscent of some Vision Street Wears, and even back then he had the switch kickflip backside tailslides. This entry in Popwar’s short-lived “Video Hype” DVD teaser series I thought of as his official/proper debut and it’s also worth revisiting as some Utahn has revived the brand-name, a strategy that we know is sure to bring profit and pleasure to all involved, and maybe even a lucky few who are not.

Meet The Press

“Don’t be a dick, and skate”

With the rise of “Epicly Later’d” a lot of different people have been trying their hand at being the next O’Dell, with generally mixed results (yea, “Behind the Griptape”; ehh, Skatebook.tv) Personally I think it has a lot to do with the dude guiding the interview. “Later’d” generally does a good job keeping people on topic, moving shit along and O’Dell stays out of the picture when it isn’t necessary. If it was, well, me in there hollering at whoever you’d get a lot of “Hey uh dude remember that one time…”

This Danny Supa interview on the Stereo site recently caught my eye because the guy conducting the interview has a way of asking questions that to me is extremely compelling and penetrating, in a way that I feel few skateboard interviews really are. Supasiriat is a mostly soft-spoken type with a straightforward approach to skating and life in general but the guy sitting down with him gets right to the brass tacks and I love it. (Check 0:46, 2:09, 4:08, 5:39.)

For sure an entertaining watch; with ON Video in the rearview mirror (more on that later) and that long break between seasons of EL still fresh in the memory banks, this dude could be on track to make waves in investigative skate video journalism. Possible starting point: is the Etnies/Adidas holiday hanky-panky a precursor to a post-holiday depression fueled takeover of SoleTech by the tri-stripe? Film at 11…

What a Fool Believes

From somewhere back in his long-ago

I’ve been lagging on the new Stereo “Field Report” promo for a while here, glued as I am to this presidential campaign and trying to sort out whether Sarah Palin does or does not support skateparks. It’s what the politicos call a “wedge to wedge” issue. (Here all week, my friends.)

Anyway, a few things. Dyson Ramones, getting good, really super good. Something of a springy spaghettio thing going on with his tricks, powerful backside heelflips and a kickflip backside 360 on flat, in a line, which for some reason seems way more impressive than when it’s done down a gap. See also: Jesus Fernandez.

Renaud has some clips and they’re all blazing of course (most in particular the opening backside flip over the Carroll rail) and Supa cracks this amazing fakie inward heelflip on a hip sort of a thing. Also well notable is Benny Fairfax, John Lupfer (who some have suggested could serve as a temporary stand-in for the Dirt) and the welcome return of prodigal agent Matt Rodriguez.

And then we have Jason Lee, whose participation in Stereo may or may not be entirely governed by his NBC contract at this point, but apparently leaves him free to ham it up with Dune to whatever extent the agency deems necessary. I think I get the greasy playboy airhead angle they’re going for, but to me it doesn’t ring true with the founding aesthetic of Stereo, which is basically jazz music. Cool, sophisticated, yes, but also sort of dark and melancholy. (Full of em tonight, I am.)

To this end I prescribe J. Lee a dose of heavy medicine care of FanFiction.net, where an anonymous author (auteur?) by the name of “Dark.Morning” recently submitted an “Earl” script titled “Polar,”, containing no small amount of gravitas:

Carl had never imagined feeling like this. There was no way he could have foreseen kneeling in the dark of his living room, holding his eldest son, crying with him, kissing his hair. He was even rocking, slowly, and didn’t even notice the motion. Earl was limp in his father’s arms, shuddering and sobbing in pure agony. Carl rubbed his son’s back with one hand, and laid the other on his nape. And he realized, no matter what had happened, no matter what would happen to Randy, he would still love…Earl. He would love his son.

They used to polar opposites, clashing with teeth bared and heads held high. Not anymore.

Nothing like some stark reality to ground your private jet for a while. Think on it, agents.

Eazy does it

Extraordinary machine

The Stereo Sound Agent blog has a post up about Jason Hernandez’s new skate camera dolly contraption, which at once put my appreciation for DIY ingenuity at odds with my general distaste for the Ty Evans school of overwrought video production. It’s a cool idea, I guess, but at what point does the average kid with a VX2000 need some shit like this? Then again, if there are kids out there whose parents shell out the duckets for VX2000s and the various trappings that go along with them, what’s another $545? I mean, it’s not like these kids have anything else with wheels that will roll in a straight line…

Aw, fuck. It’s a free market right? And I like the idea of Jason Hernandez and his dad scribbling designs on the kitchen table and messing around in the garage for a few weeks to make this work, because it reminds me of building ramps with my dad. Holy shit, before I get all sentimental, I’m going to go ahead and link the demo video featuring Daniel Shimizu and Clint Peterson and some other dudes. Now excuse me while I troll YouTube for bittersweet Wonder Years* clips…

*Arnold and Pfeiffer, not Markovich and Lambert